Had a post from the Arsenal site pop up on my Google results this morning and wasn't something I'd seen mentioned before, and as it affects us it's probably worth noting – due to the extra fixtures added by the Champions League and Europa League this season, teams competing in either of those will not be able to be drawn against each other in the 3rd round of the Carabao. To prevent fixture clash, apparently.
This means that we won't play any of Man City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Man United or Spurs in this round.
Those six teams will be pre-drawn to determine whether they’ll be at home or away for the third round, and slotted separately into the first six ties. Then when the main draw gets underway, teams from pot 2 will be paired with one European team to complete the first six ties, and then the remaining 10 will be drawn from the rest of the teams in pot 2.
This will only be the case for the third round – the rest of the competition will follow the traditional free-draw format.
Granted, not guaranteed to help us as we got knocked out by Everton last season but hey, it's something.
by Shreddonia
3 Comments
This is our year, I can feel it.
I’ve said that every year…
Not playing united immediately, will this even feel like the carabao cup?
Honestly not sure how I feel about this, seems like an excuse to give them an easier draw, potentially very good for us obviously but I don’t know if it’s in the spirit of the competition if that makes sense